The Secret of Altamura: Nazi Crimes, Italian Treasure

by Dick Rosano

  “What are you doing?”

  It was Bernhard. He was propped up on both elbows and staring directly at her. His pillow had moved slightly and, from beneath it, Marisa saw the slight glint of metal from under the pillowcase. The metal was from Bernhard's sidearm. No wonder she hadn't found his weapon. The Nazi was well aware of his own treacherous deeds and slept with only one weapon in the vicinity, and that one tucked carefully beneath his head.

  “Oh, nulla,” she said with voice as soothing as she could muster. Then she pulled back the cover and slipped between the sheets, shuddering in an almost imperceptible way as Bernhard laid his hand upon her naked thigh.

  Chapter 33

  Piazza Veneto

  The day was sunny and bright in Altamura. People walked about or drove their cars through the streets as they began the day's activities. The piazza was crowded, as always in towns such as this one, and many waves and greetings were exchanged.

  Carlo had just left Zia Filomena at the ovens. He felt that he had learned enough for that day and wanted to explore more of the town before joining Cristiano in his small winery beside their home. He walked down the street, entered the piazza, and crossed over to the café to get an espresso. Carlo liked the morning atmosphere in Italy. The storekeepers rose with the sun, swept off the sidewalks outside their shops, and the smell of roasted coffee beans and sweet rolls filled the air.

  In the morning hours, there were more lively conversations to start the day. In midday and the afternoon, most Italians concentrated their energy on the job or jobs at hand, and didn't return to their social conviviality until the cena – or supper – and then afterward during the passeggiata in the town square.

  But in the crisp air of the morning, Carlo liked being surrounded by the subtler sounds of an Italian city, the smells of fresh bread and coffee, and the clear blue of the skies above. It was at that time that he felt more connected to Altamura than he had to other cities he visited in his ancestral land.

  As he reached the opposite side of the piazza, Carlo saw a middle aged man he did not know. The man was talking to Martin and, although he couldn't yet hear the words that were exchanged, Carlo could tell from the unrestrained hand gestures that there was an argument underway.

  Approaching the men, Carlo listened more closely.

  “The Germans killed my uncle and my aunt. You're murderers,” he said to Martin.

  The art collector stood by, turning red in the face, but trying very hard not to engage the conversation.

  “Bastardo!” repeated the man, several times. “Hell has your grandfather, and he awaits you there!”

  Carlo was worried that this verbal onslaught would become worse, yet he was reluctant to become involved. At one point, Martin saw him standing just out of range, his eyes pleading for some intervention, but Carlo demurred.

  The man continued the attack, pointing his finger at Martin and, at times, striking him in the chest. Occasionally, Martin had a reply, tried hard to remain patient and understanding, but acted as though he felt violated by the attack.

  Carlo waited until the man had exhausted his venom then watched him walk away. Martin's shoulders had long since slumped into a victim's pose, and Carlo looked him over from head to toe.

  There was no way to recover from the blitz of verbal abuse, and Carlo had nothing to offer in consolation. He looked once more at Martin, who returned his glance plaintively, and then Carlo turned and walked away.

  Later in the morning, he felt guilty for abandoning the German so easily, but he had to admit that the people of Altamura had some very strong feelings about the way the Nazi troops had treated them seventy years before, and no words of wisdom from Carlo were going to change that.

  Chapter 34

  Life in Altamura

  Carlo had grown fond of Arabella and wanted to see if she would agree to spend more time with him. When he had the chance, he asked her to join him for dinner at one of the trattorie in the town. 'A date' the Americans would have called it and, although Arabella understood the evening to represent the same purpose, she demurely pretended it to be just another opportunity to get to know the man and his culture in the United States.

  “My uncles, they moved to America,” she said over a plate of lanache di casa, tagliatelle dressed with mussels stuffed with breadcrumbs, eggs, and pecorino cheese, and stewed in a rich tomato sauce.

  “Really? When was that?”

  “Well, Zio Alberto left about fifteen years ago to follow his brother, Giusto. They found jobs in New York. Didn't like it at first, too crowded and noisy, but the money was good.”

  “Where are they now?” Carlo asked.

  “They're still in New York. The money they can make there is so much more than here. They send money back to their families, and they're saving it up to buy more land outside of Altamura.”

  “Will they come back?”

  “That's the plan.” Arabella's fork dug into the tagliatelle and lifted a morsel into her mouth.

  After a few moments of silent eating, they resumed.

  “So many southern Italians who went to America a hundred years ago…” Carlo began.

  “Sì, sì, they came back to Italy,” she interrupted him.

  “Yes, they did,” he agreed. “They came back to Italy but most of them returned to America once more. They settled there. And that's why the United States had many millions of Italian immigrants and today has millions and millions of their Italian-American children and grandchildren.”

  Arabella considered this for a moment. “Times are different now.”

  “In what way?”

  “In those days, there was no work here, I mean no work,” she emphasized. “The men who went to America came back with their paychecks and stories of life in the New World. Unfortunately, the stories lasted longer than those paychecks did.”

  With a sigh, she added, “So they went back. They used the money they brought home to Italy to buy passage for their wives and children to move to America.”

  A long moment passed before anything else was said.

  “Do you ever think of moving to America?” Carlo asked.

  “No. Like I said, times have changed. The economy here is still not strong, but we are happy. My world is Altamura.”

  When Carlo considered her comments, Arabella asked, “Do you ever think of moving to Italy?”

  He resisted the too-quick 'of course not' reply, sensing that he needed to be a bit more diplomatic. Carlo had to admit that he loved Italy and its people, and he was coming to respect the Altamurans like Arabella and the Filomena family, but he couldn't imagine leaving his home in St. Louis forever.

  “No, I haven't thought about that. I guess I am connected to my home like you are connected to yours.”

  “Sì,” she said looking into her glass of wine. “It is the home, but not just the place. It's the history, the traditions, the customs, the comfort we get from knowing when we wake up in the morning what the day will feel like, what we expect to experience when we kneel before God in our church, what we look forward to tasting when we take a seat at a trattoria such as this.

  “Why would I leave?” Arabella concluded. Then, with a slight smile, she added, “Maybe it's the spirit in the air.”

  Chapter 35

  Invasion of Italy, September 8, 1943

  On the heels of the public announcement that Italy had reached an agreement with the Allies, American forces crossed over the Straits of Messina from Sicily to the toe of Italy. The British forces were already there to greet them and, with the additional armaments and troops, the Allies began a concerted effort to push on to the mainland.

  Fighting could be heard throughout the southern tip of Italy and it moved steadily up into the region of Basilicata around Matera and Altamura. The Germans were being routed from all standing positions, and the Nazi forces were being squeezed between the advancing Allied forces and the Italian partisans on their northern frontier.

  Many of the occupying German fo
rces were pulling back, but some detachments remained to protect their flank except for Bernhard and his men who remained in Altamura to continue the search for the hidden riches in the Sassi.

  Hilgendorf fielded many angry comments from the troops over a short twenty-four hour period. He, too, wanted to flee, but his sense of duty caused him to stay at Bernhard's side in the hope of convincing his superior officer to leave Italy.

  Marisa was also staying close to Bernhard, in a much more intimate way than his lieutenant, but she was also talking to his discontented troops during those tense hours. She coyly took the colonel's side while still providing fodder for his troops' seditious talk. But to the soldiers she also seemed to be something of a war victim herself, cooperating with a man for survival. The Germans went to bed that night with the sound of cannon fire ringing in their ears, not certain if they would live until morning.

  Early the next day, Marisa knew she had whipped the soldiers into a fearful frenzy. As the men stood about the café sipping hot coffee and talking, she slipped among them, putting on a tearful façade for the first time.

  “What is wrong, Marisa?” one of the soldiers asked.

  “Nothing,” she said tersely. But the men looked on with concern and her questioner pressed her for more. They were careful to remember that she was their commander's consort, but they also detected a vulnerability in Marisa, an impression that she was adept at promoting.

  Slowly, Marisa acted out the scene that she had prepared the night before for this very confrontation. She mentioned that Bernhard had been brusque with her. She pretended to excuse his behavior, saying the colonel was just as worried about the Americans as his troops were. But then…

  Tearing up, she added, “He was rough with me. I know he's scared, but…” and with that, she rubbed her left cheek as if trying to erase the pain of being slapped, “he was not a gentleman to me.”

  The soldiers' talk turned to uglier things after that. Mistreating this woman who had befriended them was out of line. One man remained silent, but his eyes burned with an intensity that Marisa welcomed.

  Hilgendorf tried to calm the men while their voices rose – all but the one soldier who kept his silence, staring at the ground in front of him.

  Chapter 36

  Back to the Sassi

  Later that morning, Bernhard barked an order to Hilgendorf.

  “We're returning to the caves today. We need to continue our mission.”

  Marisa stood nearby, as did some of the soldiers in the detachment, but she did not approach the colonel. In fact, at the sound of his voice, she moved behind the man who seemed most incensed by his commander's actions, as if shielding herself from more abuse.

  The action had the desired effect. Gripping the man's arm from behind, she could feel him tensing, and saw that the soldier was staring hostilely at Bernhard.

  The soldiers assembled, piled into the waiting vehicles, and drove off to the Sassi, leaving Marisa standing in the square.

  Marisa sneered after the column of trucks. She was beginning to believe that her plan would succeed.

  Chapter 37

  One Day in the Sassi

  The morning after his dinner with Arabella, Carlo ran into Martin again in the piazza where they decided to go to a café for breakfast. Over espresso and rolls, Martin proposed a tour of the area.

  “I'm going back to the Sassi today, but without a guide. Would you like to join me?”

  Carlo considered the idea. He had only visited the caves once, and he was curious about the civilization that existed there. He agreed, and Martin suggested meeting around ten o'clock.

  They went in Martin's car, which he then parked in the same area where Santo had taken him the other day. As they mounted the steps leading to the first level of caves, Martin took out the journal. Inspecting the details on the pages in front of him, he looked up, then to the right, assessing his location from the words logged by Anselm so many years before. The caves were ancient and unchanged, so the descriptions offered by his grandfather two generations before were still valid.

  “What's that?” asked Carlo, pointing to the journal.

  Martin was a bit unsure how to answer. He had hidden the book and its origins from all the other people he had met because the Altamurans didn't trust him. On the other hand, this young American had treated him politely and seemed to be a reasonable person, so Martin decided to risk telling him the truth. Besides, he thought to himself, Carlo might already know so there was little to hide.

  “It is my grandfather's journal, a book he kept of notes when he was in Italy during World War II.” Referring to it merely as a war journal seemed less dangerous than revealing it as a treasure map.

  “My grandfather was a German officer,” he continued. Martin recited his well-practiced speech.

  “He was sent into Italy to confiscate art for the Third Reich. What I can tell from this journal is that he kept some for himself.” Martin's face assumed a certain pinkish hue, but he continued, “And it appears that he even abused some of the Italian people.”

  Martin's appearance in Altamura had resurfaced some of the villagers stories about the Nazis generally, and Colonel Bernhard specifically. Facts mixed with rumors, but stories were told in the cafés and on the street that linked Martin to the actions of the Germans so many years before. Carlo had heard some of the stories and so he knew that the abuse Martin spoke of was more specifically the abuse of women, but he let the words pass.

  “This journal describes the art he found throughout Italy and who they belonged to. For the last few years I've tried to make amends for his thefts by seeking out the stolen materials and returning them to their rightful owners.”

  Now, Carlo pressed Martin for more information about the Sassi.

  “What will you do if you find the treasure your grandfather was looking for here?”

  Martin looked at his companion, but offered nothing in reply.

  “Do you even know that it is here, in the caves?”

  “All of his notes point to this, but, no, I don't know if this is where Anselm's fortune would be found.”

  Martin kicked at some rocks by his feet, inspected the journal once more with a cursory look, and pushed onward up the path with Carlo in tow.

  Chapter 38

  Down from the Hills

  Anselm Bernhard descended the Murge and rejoined his troops by the trucks at the base of the plateau. Only Hilgendorf had gone up into the caves with him. The colonel didn't fear his men, but knew that if he found what he was looking for, he wouldn't want too many people to know about it.

  But when he approached the troops milling about the trucks, he could tell that their mood had changed. He sensed an undercurrent of anger which he disregarded, knowing that German soldiers were conditioned to obey their commander, no matter what the circumstances. He counted on this training now.

  Bernhard intended to find the hidden cache before the Allied advance reached Altamura, although reports from the front and the battle sounds all around reminded him of the danger he and his men faced. It also steeled his resolve, and hastened his search.

  The convoy of trucks returned to Altamura and the colonel directed them to La Chiesa dello Spirito Santo. When his vehicle came to a stop, Bernhard jumped from the seat, strode up to the heavy wooden doors of the church, and rapped on them sharply with his wooden walking stick. The thudding reverberated off the stone walls throughout the interior of the church and, slowly, the doors creaked open.

  The priest, Don Daniele, appeared in the doorway, squinting in the late afternoon sunshine. Bernhard told him to come out of the church and answer some questions, but when the priest exited the cool backdrop of the nave, Bernhard grabbed him roughly by the arm and pushed him into the truck waiting at the bottom of the steps.

  The convoy then drove to the house that Bernhard had commandeered and he pushed the old priest through the door. In a moment, the woman who owned the house and who had been preparing the evening meal was pus
hed out of the same door, which slammed shut behind her.

  His men then heard their colonel shouting questions in German and Italian, but little was heard from the priest. They also heard an occasional thud or whack, and other sounds of scuffling that went on for some time.

  Soon, quiet came over the house, but then the questioning began again. In the meantime, a crowd had gathered outside. The German soldiers still stood by the front door, but the growing throng of villagers worried them. The troops wondered if they should retreat into the house – which Bernhard would not like – or disband and go back to their own quarters, away from this crowd.

  The people outside heard shouted orders from within. The colonel's commands were clearly focused on the hidden wealth that he sought, and he accused the old priest of hiding information from him. He demanded to know where it was and how he could find it. His impatience was clearly amplified by his fear of the approaching Allies. Bernhard wanted to secure this great collection before he was forced to flee for his life.

  Then there were sounds of whipping and breaking furniture, caught amidst the whimpering of the priest. After a few more moments, the house fell silent once again.

  Yanking the front door open, Hilgendorf peered within. He heard the voice of his commander, so he entered. On the floor, bloodied from the beating, his head showing a gaping wound, the priest lay dead.

  “Get him out of here!” Bernhard ordered.

  Chapter 39

  Dinner at Filomena's

  Arabella joined Carlo and the family at Filomena's for dinner that night. Since she and Gia had been friends for so long her presence was not unusual, but both Zia and her daughter noticed that Arabella was especially pretty that night and wondered if Carlo's presence was responsible.

  Cristiano also noticed the beautiful woman at the table, but from a careful distance since he saw that his adopted son was the focus of her attention. Everyone enjoyed a long and convivial meal, sharing platters of pasta alla catalogna – ziti cooked with chicory, then drained and dressed with garlic and tomato sauce, followed by agostinelle – floured and fried mullets served with lemon juice. All dishes enhanced by considerable quantities of Cristiano's wine.